


The Care and Feeding of Sam Winchester (Sort Of)

by Lise



Series: Sam and Loki Are Roommates [11]
Category: Supernatural, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Crossover, Dean gets punched in the face, Drug Addiction, Gen, Loki misses the point sometimes, Sam would say he was fine if he was on fire, Withdrawal, but mostly this is a verbal thing, loki is not always very nice, sam winchester is not your therapist, the author will not lie about that being satisfying to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's still recovering from the trainwreck that was Ruby and everything associated with her. Dean isn't taking it well. Loki isn't either, just in a different way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Care and Feeding of Sam Winchester (Sort Of)

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I haven't forgotten about Life in Reverse or any of my other projects I swear I swear I swear. IT'S JUST TAKING ME A LITTLE LONGER. in the meantime though this update for this verse has been around for a while
> 
> wow so brief interval between updates. HOW ABOUT THAT. this one kind of exploded out of me, though, even if the idea’s been lurking around for a while. this set after Sam and Ruby’s breakup, which did (if you were wondering) involve drug abuse and a falling out between Dean and Sam. I follow canon in some ways okay.
> 
> this is kind of id fic, not gonna lie. I’d be sorrier about that if…this verse weren’t sort of id fic to begin with. oh! and this fic also debuts the use of a Loki POV instead of a Sam POV. so that’s new and exciting. 
> 
> anyway! **warnings:** vague discussion of drug use, addiction, withdrawal, some violence, do you guys want me to warn for language?, loki not being a very nice person. 
> 
> all fic (posted earlier than here) and bonus materials, as always, to be found on my veritable mess of a [tumblr](http://veliseraptor.tumblr.com/), under the [#sam winchester is not your therapist](http://veliseraptor.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-winchester-is-not-your-therapist) tag. because he isn't, guys. _really._

Loki stepped through the door and stopped when Sam looked up. The way he closed the door too quietly should have been a warning to someone who knew him as well as Sam did, but his roommate was, as Loki had suspected, distracted. “Long day?” he asked sweetly.

Sam’s eyes dropped. “It was fine.” Loki eyed him carefully, weighing his options. He could let it lie. Pretend not to have noticed anything. Leave well enough alone and simply attempt to give Sam an improved evening. 

He dropped his bag with a thunk. “Liar,” he said with confidence. “So do I have to guess what happened, or are you going to tell me?”

Sam was quiet for long enough that Loki began to twitch. Perhaps it was worse than he’d thought, perhaps he’d misjudged- “He has every right to be mad at me,” Sam said finally. “I’m not questioning that, it’s just – how am I supposed to fix things when he won’t even talk to me?”

Loki felt his lips thin. “That does make it difficult.”

Sam rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll say.”

Loki crossed the room and sat down in his chair, hooked his leg over the arm of it. “No cravings?”

“Get right to it,” Sam said, but he shook his head. “No. I’m done. Completely…utterly done.”

“Good,” Loki said pleasantly. “I have informed you of the penalty if you do not maintain that promise, have I not?”

Sam winced. “Yeah, you have. Though honestly I have to wonder where you’d get some of the equipment involved.”

“I have my ways.” Loki adopted his best I-know-something-you-do-not smile, one he’d had a number of years to perfect. Sam made a face at him, and Loki just smiled a little wider. Sam shook his head.

“Thing is, from you I could almost actually believe you’d make it happen. Don’t worry. I’m not going to test it. I’m…yeah. Done.” His face fell a little, the small smile slipping off. “I’m…”

“If you are going to apologize,” Loki said quickly, “Then you had best not. I can only gloat for so long, and I’ve already done that. Besides, I could have done something, and I did not.” The look Sam cast him was severely skeptical. “I could have thrown her out the window the first time she walked in,” Loki said lightly, and was gratified to win a little laugh from Sam.

“Thanks,” Sam said, after a moment’s pause. “For…sticking by me through all this. I know it’s been… _I’ve_ been…”

“No matter, neh?” Loki said quickly. Sam’s praise made him _itch._ “Imagine the difficulty I would have finding another roommate to put up with me. Or that I would put up with.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “fair enough.” Loki could almost feel him getting that unbearably sentimental look, the one he seemed to think Loki didn’t notice that just oozed fondness. One of the few faults that Loki could truly object to in Sam, other than his obscene love of plaid, would be his tendency toward sentimentality.

Sam’s phone buzzed and he scrambled for it. Loki watched him yank it out and look at the screen, his expression almost painfully hopeful, and then it fell. He set the phone down on the table and let it buzz. “Not Dean, then?” Loki said casually.

Sam shrugged, and Loki would almost rather the sentimental look than that expression of downcast, kicked-puppy despair. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Mmhm,” Loki said. Sam’s eyes snapped to him, narrowed slightly.

“It’s not,” he said, more firmly. “Dean has – he has every right to be mad at me. I fucked up. You said so yourself.”

“I don’t disagree,” Loki said mildly. “But I do wonder if he has every right to act as though he’s the only one who was hurt, refuse to speak to you at all, and avoid you so thoroughly that he did not even manage to see you _once_ during your withdrawal.” He did not quite manage to keep his voice from rising, and Sam was scrutinizing him with care and suddenly beginning to look alarmed.

“Oh,” said Sam suddenly, “Oh, oh no, don’t you even-”

“I would not _think_ of it.” He was, though. Considering rather seriously. So perhaps he was not, strictly speaking, impartial. Perhaps he did not even like Dean very much on a _good_ day. Nonetheless. Sam was…Sam. Had done a great deal more for him than Loki ever would have considered necessary, stuck with him in spite of ugliness that would have – and had had – most others running in the opposite direction.

It just wasn’t right.

“You are not my overprotective older brother,” Sam said, throwing out an accusatory finger. “You’re _not._ And I don’t want you – I don’t know, wringing Dean out like a dishrag because _you_ think he’s being unfair.”

“You don’t think your brother’s capable of defending himself?” Loki said, cocking his head to the side. He knew his expression of perfect innocence would fool no one, most especially Sam, but that was half the point. Sam sat up, sharply.

“No,” he said. “I – Dean is _plenty_ capable of defending himself, but that’s not the…” Sam sighed, and rubbed his eyes, and then summoned a weak smile. “I’ll be okay. It’s not the end of the world.”

 _Tell that to the way you’ve been acting for the past week and a half,_ Loki thought, but didn’t say. He held up his hands. “Very well, very well. I will not interfere on your behalf, and allow you to wallow in misery for as long as it takes your brother to get his head out of his ass.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, a little sourly. Loki smiled at him again.

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

Loki rapped lightly at Dean’s door, then stepped back and slipped his hands into his pockets. “If that’s Sam,” he heard, after a moment, in an unmistakably belligerent voice, and interrupted smoothly.

“It isn’t.”

There was a long silence. Loki considered the viability of holding the conversation he wanted to have through the door. “Loki?” Dean said finally, though, sounding incredulous.

“The one and only. I prefer to have my conversations face to face, if you don’t mind…”

The door opened, after another moment, and Dean looked out at him. He looked bleary eyed, exhausted, and unhappy. A better person would probably have felt sympathy for him. Loki had never claimed to be a better person. “What’re you here for,” Dean asked, belligerently.

Loki offered him the smile that was just a little too wide. “May I come in?”

“Did Sam send you?”

“No. I am here strictly of my own accord.” Finally, Dean opened the door a little wider, and Loki slipped in past him, caught a whiff of the smell of alcohol. He wrinkled his nose. “Are you drunk?”

“Going to judge?” Dean said, but then shook his head. “No, not yet. I’ve had a _bit_ of a week, though."

“Mmm,” Loki said. He slid his hands out of his pockets and turned to face Dean.

“So what’s this about, anyway?” Dean said. “If you’re here to – I dunno, plead on Sam’s behalf or whatever-”

“Not in the least,” Loki said pleasantly. “I have no intention of doing _any_ pleading.”

“Then what-”

“First things first,” Loki said, and punched Dean square in the face.

He didn’t aim to break his nose, but he didn’t pull it, either. Dean was durable. Taken by surprise, Sam’s brother stumbled back, one hand going to his face as he swore loudly, and then shook himself and settled subtly into a fighting stance. Loki slipped his hands casually back into his pockets. “What the _fuck?_ ” Dean demanded. “Are you _crazy?_ ”

“Possibly,” Loki said coolly. “I believe you’ve said as much on a few occasions.” He spread his hands. “If you’d like to try to punch me back, you are welcome. It’s been a long week and I could use a chance to expel a little energy.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. He scanned Loki transparently up and then back down. Loki smiled pleasantly at him, the one that Sif had said made him look like a serial killer. “You _are_ a nutcase,” he said, after a few moments. “I changed my mind, get out-”

“When I leave here,” Loki said, over him, “it will be on my terms. I came here to have words with you, Dean Winchester. I mean to have them, regardless of what you would prefer. If that means I must fight you until you cry mercy, so be it. But I would not recommend trying my _very_ short patience, particularly as I do not like you very much to begin with.”

Dean stared at him. Loki waited, not letting his tension show. Sam would be displeased if he had to fight Dean and Sam heard about it, which he probably would. That was not ideal, but nonetheless, Loki thought, a worthwhile price, if need be.

Finally, Dean crossed his arms. “Fine. Talk.”

Loki inclined his head fractionally. “Firstly, Sam does not know I am here,” Loki said calmly. “He had no part in sending me and, in fact, explicitly told me not to interfere.”

“Good job with that,” Dean said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. Loki didn’t so much as blink.

“I would have no trouble,” he said, “telling Sam to be well rid of you. You are frequently selfish, thoughtless, and petty – faults which I myself possess and am therefore rather good at recognizing. But what I will _not_ tolerate is watching you push Sam away when he needs you most.”

“What,” Dean said, his voice aggressive, “like you ditched your brother?” 

He’d meant to stay calm. Other than the one punch to the face, meant to have a rational discussion, say what he had come to say, and go. Of course, however, that never seemed to work out. His temper plunged to freezing.

“You will be quiet,” Loki said, in a voice he almost didn’t recognize as his own.

Dean raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think you can just-”

“ _Silence._ ”

Dean’s mouth snapped closed. A moment later, he looked like he was going to reconsider out of sheer, stubborn pride. Loki took a step closer to him and, miraculously, he didn’t. Good. Bad things happened sometimes when people ignored the warning signs of this mood.

“I’m sure you are aware,” Loki said, and was faintly surprised at how even his voice managed to be, “that your brother is an exceptional man. Even as your silence is breaking him apart, he would defend you to me. You have a right, he tells me, to be angry. To forgive in your own time. It is, he would have me believe, what he deserves.”

Standing still generated too much pressure. He started to pace. “He has hurt you, he tells me. Wronged you. And I watch him pick at his food, and stare at his phone, and all the while…have you ever been addicted to anything, Dean? Alcohol, perhaps? I hear it runs in your family.” Loki smiled tightly. “I would venture no. No, or maybe you have forgotten. How quickly all else diminishes in importance. How you can know you are losing control and still not be able to stop. Am I wrong?”

Dean’s mouth spasmed. “You don’t know,” he started to say.

“No,” Loki interrupted him. “ _You_ don’t know. _You_ don’t know what Sam’s been going through, because you haven’t bothered to listen. _You_ don’t know what kind of hell he’s been living, because you can’t look past yourself for one _minute_ to see that your _brother_ is trying to claw his way back up while you would hold him down in a pit. _You_ don’t know how much he _idolizes_ you, _adores_ you, how because _you can’t deal_ with the fact that you didn’t stop him, you’re going to kill him.” Loki took a sharp breath in through his nose. “You weren’t there to hear how he said your name when he was half delirious and I had to be the one to tell him you weren’t there, that you hadn’t found it _worth your while_ to come.”

Dean wasn’t looking at him anymore. Loki glanced away as well, directed his gaze out the window. “Sam deserves better than me. He deserves you. And if you can’t find it in yourself to reach out to him now-"

Silence. Loki’s heart still felt like it was thudding too hard, his emotions still a little too sharp, a little too keen.

“You done?” Dean said finally, his voice a little rough.

“Yes,” Loki said curtly, after a moment. “That’s all.” He bowed his head, stiffly. “I do hope you’ll consider what I’ve said.” He turned on his heel. “I will not waste any more of your precious time.”

“Loki,” Dean said suddenly. He paused, waiting. “It’s not that simple.”

“Do you care about him?” Loki asked tonelessly. “Do you want him to get out of this?”

“Of course I-”

“Then it is that simple,” Loki interrupted. He went out, and closed the door quietly behind him. He could feel his shoulders trying to shake. His blood felt too hot. _You probably didn’t do any good,_ an awful voice whispered in the back of his mind. _You shouldn’t have come to begin with. Probably made things worse._

He walked back to the apartment, trying to keep his mind deliberately elsewhere.

* * *

It was three days later that Loki returned to the apartment after his classes and found Sam puttering nervously around the kitchen, Dean sitting awkwardly at the table. Sam turned and looked at him like a startled rabbit on the verge of panic, and Dean didn’t look at him at all.

Loki let his eyebrows rise. “Mm,” he said, after a moment. “I seem to have remembered an errand I need to run. It will probably take an hour or so. Good afternoon, Sam. Dean.” He slipped back out, stood for a moment on the landing until he heard the low murmur of speech start, and then descended the stairs to the street.

For just a moment, he was aware of his own phone in his pocket, unanswered texts from almost a month before. _It’s not that simple,_ Dean had said, and _it is that simple._

 _Not for me,_ he thought, and slipped his hands in the pockets, starting toward the library.


End file.
